Hot Chocolate
by MilesAboveFantasy
Summary: While drinking a cup of hot chocolate, Alex remembers the past. Character study. College fic. Canon compliant as of Scorpia Rising.


**Title:** Hot Chocolate

 **Summary:** While drinking a cup of hot chocolate, Alex remembers the past. | Character study. College fic. Canon compliant as of Scorpia Rising.

* * *

 **Hot Chocolate**

Alex Rider had a busy day ahead of him. He was 20 years old now, a Sophomore at a college in San Francisco. It was March, just after midterms, and the semester was at its most hectic. He had just gotten out of his second class of the day, Chemistry, and was on his way to a meeting.

Normally, this was his Tuesday/Thursday lunch hour, but the future waited on no one's schedule but its own. Getting an internship interview was hard enough and using his lunch hour was worth the opportunity.

Alex blinked as he did the math, still tired despite having already been to two classes today, and lazily dodged people as he walked down the sidewalk. Each class was 75 minutes with 15 minutes in between. He had 90 minutes. The interview started in 20 minutes and shouldn't take longer than half an hour, so that left time for a short lunch.

Worst case, the interview was at Starbucks. He could grab a snack - he might just anyway. The chocolate croissants always looked good. It wouldn't fill him, but he had survived with less, and that wasn't even considering that dark time in his teenage years.

He entered the Starbucks and found a line. No surprise. It was Starbucks after all. At just short of noon no less! Its location in the campus commons ensured that everyone and their dogs were there. The only time it wasn't crowded to the teeth was at the depths of 2 AM study sessions, and even that time wasn't safe during exam weeks.

Alex thought about his day as he waited in line. After this meeting, he had two more classes and then a meeting with his Communications class project group. Then he had a quick dinner before rushing to the LGBT club's weekly meeting. By then, it would be 7 PM where he would go for a quick workout and then grab another quick dinner before a night of homework. In some ways, he hated the long days as much as any of his classmates. In others, he relished it. After five years of peace, he was finally normal.

The line was moving more quickly than he had expected and he was speaking to the cashier in less than seven minutes. Combined with the walk from class that left him nine of his 20 minutes before the meeting. Naturally, timing things down to the second was still second nature to him, though Alex liked to convince himself that it was part of who he was rather than what he was.

"Hot Chocolate, with peppermint syrup," Alex said with a smile as he passed over his debit card. Edward kept him funded like any father would - plus, the older man always said, he would be neither rich nor alive without Alex's help!

After a quick 'thank you,' Alex continued down the counter. Starbucks was like a conveyor belt. The first step was the line to the cashier, the second was waiting in another line as your drink was prepared. His drink was ready in four minutes, which left him with five minutes to find a seat and wait. Alex bid his time by blowing on the opening of his drink to cool it off.

The woman arrived right on time - or at least, the woman he thought was his interviewer. She had a clipboard and walked with the gait of someone in charge, though retaining friendliness. It fit the profile of someone who was about to conduct an interview, so he waved her over.

"Alex Rider?" She asked. She took a seat as he nodded and then continued. "Sarah Graham. I am here to conduct your interview with our firm this summer, the Clayborne Genetics Institute."

Alex nodded. "That's me," he said with a wry grin, his tone mildly amused to mask that jolt that passed through him. Genetics. Lost family, clones, and even poisonous plants were associated with that word.

"Let's start this off a little less formal. Tell me a bit about yourself: hobbies, clubs, jobs, plans for Spring Break."

Alex nodded and spoke nonchalantly. He had always been good at speaking off the top of his head. He told her about LGBT club and soccer, the Ps4 he kept stashed in his room for the rare quiet days, and the trip to Canada he had planned with the Pleasures. He even mentioned the adoption when he was 15. Just enough truth to satisfy her so that she wouldn't notice that he hadn't mentioned any jobs. He wanted to forget that himself.

Sarah Graham nodded eagerly as she jotted down some notes - short hand at best, Alex noted. "Now, for the formal questions - what made you choose to major in Biology?"

Alex chewed on his lip. It was always a difficult question for him to answer, but he had gotten used to the struggle the previous year when he got the question five or six times a week. Freshmen woes.

"Well, I've always been good at science," he said honestly. "I suppose it is a good way to help people. I could become a doctor, or a geneticist," he added slyly. Sarah smiled at the playful wordplay.

What Alex didn't mention was how he wanted to conquer the fears science had inflicted on him in the past. It was a thought he had never spoken out loud and scarcely thought, and as he watched her slowly take notes on his answer, he needed her to hurry up and ask the next one to get the parasitic stream of thought out of his mind.

"What makes you stand out as a student? Why should we look to you?"

Alex nodded to acknowledge her question. He was biting his nails now, a bad habit he perpetuated when nervous. But why was he nervous? He had prepared for this, and knew the answers by heart as recently as last night. But now, his mind was blank. It was just him and her at the table. She was on one side, and he was on the other, and, he thought darkly, she held all the power. She could decide his fate in one sweeping thought, and he could do nothing to change her mind. In a way, he suspected that she had already made her mind before she even arrived.

"Alex?" she asked.

Her face was kind, but that was nothing new to him.

"Oh, sorry," he mumbled. "A bit lost in thought." He knew he sounded daft.

Sarah smiled. "Don't worry about it. You're young. At Clayborne, we understand that our interns are still growing."

Alex nodded, and lifted his drink to his lips. It had cooled down enough to drink, though was still hot enough to burn if he gulped. The aroma rose to his nose, and he felt himself visibly relax. The peppermint did that. He could feel the tension leave his shoulders, and just a little bit, the weight of the world lessened.

He closed his eyes for a moment and he could almost picture himself back in his childhood home in London, sipping hot chocolate as he recovered in bed. Jack's smiling face was peeking through the door to check on him.

Jack. It had been a while since he thought about her, and as the hot chocolate filled his senses and warmed his tongue, he couldn't help but think of the dozens, hundreds - no, too many to count - times that she had brought him his comfort drink. He couldn't remember when the tradition started. It had always just been. She always knew when he was hurting and how to make him feel better.

She was gone now. Dead. She would never bring him a hot chocolate again. More than once he had woken from a nightmare where she was burning. Burning because of him. He could almost feel that pain. The memories of Africa were vivid in his mind - he could feel his skin burning as if he were covered in flaming fuel.

"Alex?! Alex!"

His eyes popped open to find worried eyes looking at his own. The pain had been all too real. By the look in her eyes, he knew that he had dropped his hot chocolate on himself even before he knew it wasn't in his hand, before he saw the drink spreading over the table, and before he realized that the fire coursing through his body was a near scorching liquid on and between his legs.

Alex blinked. His heart was racing. Fear, embarrassment, anger, shame, guilt.

Guilt.

Guilt.

Guilt.

He couldn't think. Didn't want to think.

"I… I…" he stuttered as he stood. "Can't be here right now."

Then he grabbed his bag and left, ignoring the looks the other students gave him and Sarah's cries of return.

"It's alright, Alex. Accidents happen!"

Accidents did happen. He knew that too well, and he knew that nothing would ever be alright. He was almost grateful for the burning on his legs. It likely wouldn't scar - though if it did, it would just join a collection. The burning had one good consequence. It distracted his mind from the real pain. It stopped him from thinking, just for a little while, the truth. No matter how well his life had been going, he had never really healed at all.

As he tasted the left over hot chocolate in his mouth, he knew that he never would.

* * *

This hurt? Yeah, this hurt.

I was trying to capture how Alex still has many of the tendencies he developed as a spy, though he writes them off as part of who he is. Perhaps true, though we know that Alex uses denial and justification for things, like earlier in the series when he refuses to acknowledge that his actions cause deaths and writes them off as accidents (Skeleton Key). He is actively denying the truth, which is also what he is doing here. Alex refuses to admit he is changed by his past, up until he has it forced into his face. I think this has happened multiple times since Scorpia Rising, but each time leads to him hiding from it more and more. He likely has told no friends or family.

Planning to the minute, counting the minute, noticing every little detail in Sarah's movement and expressions were examples of his latent spy behavior. The fic is also full of moments where he has blocked off the past and forced himself not to think about it, such as referring to it as "that dark time in his teenage years." And since he refuses to acknowledge it, he is unaware that sitting at the table with the Sarah reminded him of his time sitting across from Blunt, and he projected his fear towards Blunt on her despite her clearly being kind to Alex. He just can't see someone that has power over him being kind.

So, yeah, yikes.


End file.
